Political Ideas and Political Conflict in Twelfth-Century Denmark (original) (raw)
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Kings, Crusades and Competition – The Danish-Norwegian conflict in the 1160s
The year 1161 marked the beginning of the reign of King Magnus V Erlingsson (r.1161-1184). A few years later he became the first crowned and anointed king of Norway. This did not only signal something new in regards to the ideology of power, a step towards the rex iustus ideal, but it also marked a break with older custom of succession. Behind the boy king stood two powerful men, who each represented powerful elements in the Norwegian society; the first was the young king"s father Erling "Wry-necked", the foremost leader of the Norwegian aristocracy, and the other was Archbishop Øystein Erlendsson of Nidaros (r.1161Nidaros (r. -1188, who represented the Church. The difficult task faced by this triumvirate was to defend the new dynasty from both internal and external enemies. During the 1160s this also involved a major conflict with the Danish King Valdemar the Great (r.1157Great (r. -1182. The aim of this paper is twofold: First to study the Danish-Norwegian conflict and the mechanisms involved and secondly how crusading ideology played an important role in both the creation and the protection of the new dynasty.
This study addresses issues of politics, kinship, property, inheritance, religion and gender. It seeks to show how the interplay of these elements shaped the social, political and religious landscapes of early medieval Denmark. At the core is one particular elite family, the Bodil-family, and their family-monastery, Saint Peter’s Abbey in the town of Næstved in the southern part of the island of Zealand. As result the intricate relations between religion and politics are revealed, as well as the opportunities and challenges presented to elite women.
Journal of Conflict Archaeology., 2007
Despite modern notions of cultural homogeneity in southern Scandinavia, substantial ethnic differences characterized its Iron Age and early Medieval populations. Creation of a unified state from earlier social formations ignited rifts leading to social disorder, rebellion, and uprising during a transitional era when upper and lower classes felt these changes most sharply. Ethnohistoric evidence preserves a record of ritualized public performances by state and local leaders, revealing relationships that shifted between fear, negotiation, challenge, and defiance. This is compared against archaeological evidence of widespread, rapid changes in settlement organization in some regions, and relative stability in others, interpreted as outcomes of unsuccessful and successful challenges to state authority. Groups electing to use violent conflict in challenging the state, who also had histories of inter-group interaction, were better able to preserve autonomy than those attempting legalistic arguments and 'rational' negotiations. Data are interpreted in light of ethnographic case studies and contemporary social theory.
Introduction: Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050-1250, Legitimacy and Glory
in: Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050–1250, vol. III Legitimacy and Glory, ed. W. Jezierski, K. Esmark, H.J. Orning, J.V. Sigurdsson (Routledge: New York), pp. 1-35, 2021
This introductory chapter presents the geographical, chronological, and thematic scope of the volume and expounds its guiding questions and conceptual framework. By combining Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of symbolic capital and doxa, Giorgio Agamben’s examination of medieval economy of gloria, and Max Weber’s threefold model of legitimation of leadership, the chapter discusses how medieval Scandinavian elites fused sacral and practical resources to elevate themselves and convince others of their social and political legitimacy, that is, their deservedness to rule. What is proposed is a dynamic, heterarchic, and practice-oriented model of studying how sociopolitical status and haloing glory were competed for, justified, and reproduced over time. These conceptual themes and problems are fleshed out in the presentation of the individual chapters and the three sections into which the entire volume is divided: Glorifying Kings, Spaces of Elevation, and Elevating Social Orders. In its last section the chapter discusses how the sudden boom in literary production and composition of historical sources on the verge of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries both reflected and was the vehicle of elite competition in Scandinavia.
Valdemar, Absalon and Saxo : Historiography and Politics in Medieval Denmark
Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, 1985
This article (from 1985) is a continuation of my work on Saxo Grammaticus (doctoral thesis 1980), in which I argue against traditional interpretations of Gesta Danorum. After 30 years it has still not been properly commented on, as far as I know, so now I welcome my colleagues' viewpoints!
2010
ASGER THRUGOTSEN is the first Scandinavian prelate for whom it is possible to construct a biographical sketch based on a dossier of documents rather than relying on the evidence of literary biographies and hagiographies. Asger of Lund -the first archbishop in Scandinavia -stands out and allows us a small glimpse of his personality and policy. His long career was focused on the diocese of Lund, whose bishop he was 1089-1137, and covers a long period of relative stability in the Danish kingdom, which ended with the battle at Fotevik in 1134 where six of Denmark's bishops died after Asger's unexpected switch of allegiance from the royal party to that of the pretender Erik II Emune on the eve of battle.
Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050–1250, Volume III: Legitimacy and Glory
Lars Kjær, Wojtek Jezierski, Hans Jacob Orning, Kim Esmark, Bjørn Bandlien, Torfi Tulinius, Martin Hansson, Carl Phelpstead, Simon Lebouteiller, Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, Roland Scheel
2021
This book explores the practical and symbolic resources of legitimacy which the elites of medieval Scandinavia employed to establish, justify, and reproduce their social and political standing between the end of the Viking Age and the rise of kingdoms in the thirteenth century. Geographically the chapters cover the Scandinavian realms and Free State Iceland. Thematically the authors cover a wide palette of cultural practices and historical sources: hagiography, historiography, spaces and palaces, literature, and international connections, which rulers, magnates, or ecclesiastics used to compete for status and to reserve haloing glory for themselves. The volume is divided in three sections. The first looks at the sacral, legal, and acclamatory means through which privilege was conferred onto kings and ruling families. Section II explores the spaces such as aristocratic halls, palaces, churches in which the social elevation of elites took place. Section III explores the traditional and novel means of domestic distinction and international cultural capital which different orders of elites-knights, powerful clerics, ruling families, etc.-wrought to assure their dominance and set themselves apart vis-à-vis their peers and subjects. A concluding chapter discusses how the use of symbolic capital in the North compared to wider European contexts.